An urgent lifeline for Catalan

If the giants tremble, imagine the Lilliputians. Donald Trump, who on his first day in office had already ordered the removal of the Spanish version of the White House website, signed an executive order on March 1st declaring English the official language of the United States. The objective? To make the US administration less complacent about the use of Spanish and push citizens toward integration through the desired common language. This same Tuesday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Labour's Keir Starmer, wrote on social media: "If you want to live in the United Kingdom, you should speak English. It's common sense." Americans and British, both right and left, are expressing similar concerns. It seems like it: strong states with an imperial language tormented by their linguistic future.

If this is the mood toward English, it takes no effort to understand the unease of Catalan speakers. A linguistic community whose percentage of the total population continues to shrink. The Benjamin Button of languages. If in 2003, 48% of the population used this language regularly, by 2025 this proportion will reach only 32.6%.

The National Pact for Language can be described as majority and indispensable.

"Life is hard!" say the globalists of individuality and those who don't see their mother tongue threatened. "We have to make Catalan more sympathetic!" add those who cling to any excuse to recommend the use of garlic and water to those of us who speak this language. "We shouldn't have politicized the language!" add others, with some justification but no interest in helping what, patrimonially, they should also consider theirs. "It's freedom of choice, after all, we are bilingual!" exclaim those who enjoy the overwhelming predominance of Spanish and who only have to change languages ​​by choice and never, unlike their Catalan-speaking compatriots, out of necessity.

This entire prologue serves to emphasize the urgency of the National Language Pact, finalized on Tuesday by Salvador Illa's government, the preparatory work for which began with Pere Aragonès's. The absences—Junts, CUP, PP, Vox, and AC—make it impossible to describe the agreement reached as national, as the signatories claim, but it is nevertheless a majority and indispensable agreement.

See if I haven't. As an individual of a species threatened with extinction, I've done the math. If luck holds my hand and I reach the statistical life expectancy for a male: 81 years, I have 27 calendar years left. Enough time, if the trend in linguistic use of the last five decades continues, to attend the funeral of my language—which would already be below 20% as the language commonly used among Catalans—before attending my own funeral, dressed in a pine suit.

Since migration flows aren't expected to change, and there's no sign of a rise in the birth rate, it's reasonable to assume that this is what would happen if the government continued to sit idly by. Although, truth be told, it's not clear that the situation will be any different now that it has decided to move on. Because the truth is that language, once learned only, without a sufficient critical mass of speakers who consider it their mother tongue, tends toward rickets. And from there to average uselessness is only a short step, because the richness of its expression suffers from malnutrition. But let's not dwell on demographics, as the mere mention of them marks one as unsympathetic, conservative, and supremacist, even if one has read and adores Paco Candel.

On a purely political level, the National Pact for Language confirms Salvador Illa's political intelligence. The president of the Generalitat (Catalan government) has both feet on the stone that acts as the lowest common denominator of Catalan identity: language, and makes it more difficult for the opposition line promoted by Junts (Junts) to take root when it accuses him of denationalizing Catalonia. Perhaps granting him that endorsement was too much for the members of the Junts (Junts). Even so, Jordi Pujol's presence is what it seems. A reminder that in 2025, it is still possible to maintain an eye above the partisan struggle on core identity issues like language. The former president's presence made it clear that a vigilant and critical yes from Junts would have been more understandable and easier to explain.